Regina Rooney

Outstanding College of Agriculture Alumna award winner Regina
Rooney has a life of loves:

Husband, Richard Ogden,

Three children,

Two grandchildren,

Ballet (yes, ballet),

And biochemistry

The Cheyenne native attended college while raising three
children, and 18 years after her Ph.D finds herself the cofounder of a
consulting company with her husband and able to live wherever she and her
husband wish. They chose Moran, with views of the Tetons looming outside their
windows.

"I whole-heartedly endorse any effort that would let Regina's
compassion for all humans and passion for science shine as a more visible
example of the life we should all aspire to," writes Tom Jackson of Jackson
Engineering Inc. of San Diego, California, in a nomination letter.

Jackson, a mechanical engineer, and Rooney began working
together in 1995. "We combined our two fields of technical background to create
some very challenging products in the life science fields involving both DNA and
proteomic targets," he continues. "Several patents evolved, and at least four
resulting product lines are still on the market today generating jobs and
revenue across the country."

Accolades from colleagues run throughout nomination letters
for Rooney: outstanding scientist, born leader, high integrity, energy.

"She is among the most successful graduates of the molecular
biology program at UW," writes Professor Nancy Peterson, who was her graduate
adviser.

Writes Pamela Langer, associate professor in the University of
Wyoming College of Agriculture's molecular biology department, "Dr. Regina
Rooney is a clear example of someone who has stretched her education in
molecular biology from basic research to management of product development in
the biotechnology industry."

Rooney grew up in Cheyenne and attended UW knowing she wanted
to major in a science area. She dabbled in medical technology and realized she
would rather be in micro. She declared microbiology as a major her second year.
After three and a half years, with one semester remaining to complete her
degree, she decided she wanted to stay home to be with her 9-month-old son. "I
decided I wanted to spend time with him, then I had my other children, and I
raised my family," she says. All the while she was continually attending UW
taking ballet courses. "I had been a ballet dancer all my life. It's my second
love."

Rooney had considered a master's in dance, teaching at a
junior college and opening a studio of her own, but she had a decision to make.
With only a few courses to take to complete a bachelor's degree in either dance
or microbiology, she had to choose which career she really wanted to pursue.
Then she took biochemistry. "That was it," she says. "That was the science I
wanted to be in." She obtained her bachelor's degree in microbiology in
1984.

Then, having recently become a single mother, she subsequently
obtained her degree over a stretch of six years. "It was crazy," she recalls. "I
had a couple of teenagers. Teens and parents can get on top of each other, but
we didn't have time to do that. I remember I would have some (harried) younger
students come into my office and say, "I'm crazy! How are you doing this?" There
was another person in the department who preceded me doing exactly the same
thing I was. She was an inspiration. I knew it could be done, and, at that time,
people were not doing it as much as now. It was just starting to get like that."

She found that her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1990 was only a
beginning. She was already at her post doc position when she returned to defend
her thesis. "I was enjoying the work so much," she says. "This was my entry
point into what I really wanted to do in science. I had so much fun doing
research at the university."

Radmilla Micanovic, research adviser with Lilly Research
Laboratories LLC, and also a UW alumnus, first met Rooney in 1984 when Rooney
joined the UW department as a graduate student. They've remained friends over
the years.

"Regina was a very hardworking, supportive, and cooperative
colleague, always willing to help and share learning," says Micanovic. "I also
remember her as a person of high integrity, energy, focus, self-motivation, able
to make and follow through decisions with speed and energy, very reliable, and
resourceful. She was notably ambitious and a high achiever but, at the same
time, highly ethical and a very trustworthy friend and colleague."

Rooney says she and her fellow students were fortunate to have
wonderful seminar speakers, including Nobel Prize winners. "And we could talk to
them one-on-one because we had such small classes," notes Rooney. "We had a
couple come in from the scientific industry. There were small biotech companies
cropping up all over, and our professors knew these people. From listening to
them, by the time I got my degree, I intended to go into the scientific industry
of biotechnology."

She worked five years at her post doc position at the
University of California at Riverside (UCR) and made a key discovery on the
activity of a protein kinase and the laboratory started applying for patents.

Rooney worked in the laboratory of Jolinda Traugh, professor
of biochemistry at UCR. Traugh spoke of Rooney's creativity and her research on
the protein kinase PAK. "Regina made a major breakthrough when she found that
PAK was activated in quiescent cells," notes Traugh. PAK was identified as a
stress-activated protein kinase that inhibited cell division.

"As a result of her research, Regina also had a major role in
obtaining a patent on PAK as a therapy for cancer through inhibition of cell
division," says Traugh. "The projects she has developed have been a boon to
technology, especially in the area of electrophoresis."

Five years after joining UCR Rooney says it was time to
leave and started looking at industry. Her entry into industry was to be
Nanogen, a small San Diego, California-based start-up company with 26 employees
at the time she joined. She would eventually work at Invitrogen of
Carlsbad, California, from 1999-2005, leaving as the technical area manager of
research and development for all electrophoresis products.

Many of her accomplishments promoted the development of basic
protein separation technologies that now benefit both agricultural and medical
research, says Langer, many launched by Invitrogen. "She directed research and
development of their line of electrophoresis products," notes Langer. "Her work
in developing new methods and apparati for protein analysis contributed to the
emerging field of proteomics, which is now at the core of many experimental
programs."

Rooney was Tom Beardslee's first manager in the
electrophoresis/proteomics group at Invitrogen. "Throughout the development of
these products, it was my pleasure to work with Regina as her imagination in
design and leadership of teams from multiple disciplines served as a positive
role model in my new career in industry," he says.

Work in private industry wasn't much different from academia,
Rooney says. The politics were a little different, and there was access to more
research equipment and materials to meet the tight timelines. "You always have
to report to someone, and you always have to get money to work," she says. She
found the interdisciplinary nature of it wonderful. "That's what I loved about
industry."

Husband Richard, who had worked as a scientist for a
pharmaceutical company, left his firm about six months after Regina left hers. "Richard and I both wanted to open a consulting firm," she says. "We decided to
incorporate and go back to Moran. It's next to Teton National Park. You can see
the Tetons. We had been spending time there and decided since we were free
agents, we could establish residence wherever we chose. In this type of work,
it's the sort of thing you can do all over the world. We wind up traveling to
clients."

The company has five U.S.- and European-based clients.

From their home in California getting ready to travel to
Moran she offers her own definition of the American Dream.

"What it really comes down to, we worked very, very hard, the
same as academic scientists," she says. "You're working all the time. But most
important, we can now spend time with our grandkids. That is the American Dream.
We have two grandkids and two dreams."